Ebook263 pages7 hours
Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early Modern France
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this ebook
At one time in Europe, there was a point to pain: physical suffering could be a path to redemption. This religious notion suggested that truth was lodged in the body and could be achieved through torture. In Tortured Subjects, Lisa Silverman tells the haunting story of how this idea became a fixed part of the French legal system during the early modern period.
Looking closely at the theory and practice of judicial torture in France from 1600 to 1788, the year in which it was formally abolished, Silverman revisits dossiers compiled in criminal cases, including transcripts of interrogations conducted under torture, as well as the writings of physicians and surgeons concerned with the problem of pain, records of religious confraternities, diaries and letters of witnesses to public executions, and the writings of torture's abolitionists and apologists. She contends that torture was at the center of an epistemological crisis that forced French jurists and intellectuals to reconsider the relationship between coercion and sincerity, or between free will and evidence. As the philosophical consensus on which torture rested broke down, and definitions of truth and pain shifted, so too did the foundation of torture, until by the eighteenth century, it became an indefensible practice.
Looking closely at the theory and practice of judicial torture in France from 1600 to 1788, the year in which it was formally abolished, Silverman revisits dossiers compiled in criminal cases, including transcripts of interrogations conducted under torture, as well as the writings of physicians and surgeons concerned with the problem of pain, records of religious confraternities, diaries and letters of witnesses to public executions, and the writings of torture's abolitionists and apologists. She contends that torture was at the center of an epistemological crisis that forced French jurists and intellectuals to reconsider the relationship between coercion and sincerity, or between free will and evidence. As the philosophical consensus on which torture rested broke down, and definitions of truth and pain shifted, so too did the foundation of torture, until by the eighteenth century, it became an indefensible practice.
Related to Tortured Subjects
Related ebooks
The Big Book of Pain: Torture and Punishment Through History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Intellectual History of Cannibalism Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Torture: An Expert's Confrontation with an Everyday Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of Torture and Death Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Torture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsErotic Exchanges: The World of Elite Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century Paris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Psychopathia Sexualis: A Medico-Forensic Study Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancien Régime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Victorian Sexual Dissidence Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Torture and Democracy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Consensual Violence: Sex, Sports, and the Politics of Injury Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotorious Prisons of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dracula Secrets: Jack the Ripper and the Darkest Sources of Bram Stoker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Devil's Chain: Prostitution and Social Control in Partitioned Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Executions & Horrible Tortures From Olden Times Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Devils Walk Among Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Monastic Prisons and Torture Chambers: Crime and Punishment in Central European Monasteries, 1600–1800 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTorture Garden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfronting Torture: Essays on the Ethics, Legality, History, and Psychology of Torture Today Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence: Perversity, Despair & Collapse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black and White and Blue: Adult Cinema from the Victorian Age to the VCR Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Modern women on trial: Sexual transgression in the age of the flapper Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFemale Secret Agents: Female Secret Agents in World Wars, Cold War and Civil Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Executioner Always Chops Twice: Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Forms of Desire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5THE BLOODY COUNTESS: Atrocities Of Erzsebet Bathory Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Killing Others: A Natural History of Ethnic Violence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
European History For You
Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jane Austen: The Complete Novels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Celtic Mythology: A Concise Guide to the Gods, Sagas and Beliefs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kamphf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mein Kampf: The Original, Accurate, and Complete English Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGalileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Discovery of Pasta: A History in Ten Dishes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of English Magic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Six Wives of Henry VIII Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Celtic Charted Designs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Tortured Subjects
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Tortured Subjects - Lisa Silverman
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1